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Mired in the
Fog of Lucidity
posted
Sounds like they're in the early stages of getting serious about the shipping business...



Amazon will finally launch its shipping service for businesses in LA in the “coming weeks,” according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The service, dubbed Shipping with Amazon or SWA, will directly compete with companies like Fedex and UPS. However, it will be initially restricted to companies selling goods on Amazon’s own marketplace.

Shipping with Amazon is not a new project for the company. For years, the e-commerce giant has been building out its delivery infrastructure, expanding into ocean freight, leasing its own cargo planes, finding ways to deliver packages inside your house with Amazon Key, and even planning for the future with its drone delivery initiative. Despite all this, though, the company isn’t ready to go toe-to-toe with established firms, which spend billions each year just upgrading their existing networks.

For that reason, Shipping with Amazon is starting small. So far, it’s been tested in various pilot programs, including in London, and this initial launch is said to be limited to Los Angeles. The WSJ reports that Amazon plans to then “expand the service to more cities as soon as this year,” but doesn’t report a time-frame for doing so. Amazon already delivers at least some of its own orders in 37 American cities, but still relies on the likes of the U.S. Postal Service to fill in the gaps in its coverage.

For those who study Amazon’s business model, SWA looks awfully familiar to the tech giant’s hugely successful cloud computing business, AWS. With AWS, Amazon first built out infrastructure that could service its own needs, and, once that was established, began selling the same tools to third parties. SWA could be on a similar track.

As independent analyst Ben Thompson put it, Amazon’s ultimate goal “is to take a cut of all economic activity.” AWS lets Amazon siphon some of the profits of digital businesses by selling them the infrastructure they need to reach their customers, and SWA could do something for companies with physical products to deliver

There’s no guarantee, of course, that SWA will succeed like AWS given the hugely different demands of running cloud and shipping businesses. But Amazon is at least going with a tried-and-tested method to out-compete its rivals, and wants to steal business from UPS and Fedex by undercutting them on price.



https://www.theverge.com/2018/...e-swa-launching-soon
 
Posts: 4850 | Registered: February 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I like Amazon and am a Prime member. However, at what point do we begin to become concerned that the company is simply too big? I've begun wondering the same thing about Google.


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Posts: 33845 | Location: Orlando, FL | Registered: April 30, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
safe & sound
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I don't know what percentage of Amazon deliveries make up UPS/FedEx normal business, but this can't be good for them.

If they continue as things are they're going to loose not only the Amazon business but also market share.

I'd be tempted to cut them off right now. It would likely hurt, but who else is going to do it for them?


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Posts: 15965 | Location: St. Charles, MO, USA | Registered: September 22, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Like a party
in your pants
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My son has worked for UPS for over 10 years. He started at the bottom and has worked his way up to driving a tractor trailer, he has been doing this for about 2 years now.
He makes very good money but job security is now a very real threat. He mentions the Amazon threat as the main one.
Amazon "punished" Ups a couple years ago for slow delivery at Christmas, now they lead UPS around like a carrot in front of a horse.I fear that Amazon will be such a great part of UPS business that UPS will have a hard time living without them in the future.All this will finally come to terms with Amazon dumping them.
My advice to my Son, SAVE YOUR MONEY!
 
Posts: 4745 | Location: Chicago, IL, USA: | Registered: November 17, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
A Grateful American
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Your advice to your son, should include a resume and cover letter to "Amazon Parcel Service", and ready to mail in an instant...




"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
 
Posts: 44761 | Location: ...... I am thrice divorced, and I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! (in Arkansas) | Registered: December 20, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Still finding my way
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I think it's good.
UPS and Fed Ex aren't keeping up and service it terrible so taking the Amazon volume off of them and letting UPS and F.E. stick with the business to business routes that they actually do well will be best for the end user.
 
Posts: 10851 | Registered: January 04, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Thank you
Very little
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Amazon is using locals to drive packages around here, my daughter received a package from them and the drivers were not UPS/Fedex/USPS but independents in their personal cars.

While the guy brought the package to the door his wife/gf/partner stood in the yard smoking a cigarette, not the professional image one would like.

It appears at least here and I"m sure elsewhere it's an Uber type service, getting people to make deliveries in their POV.
 
Posts: 24725 | Location: Gunshine State | Registered: November 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
...getting people to make deliveries in their POV.

That's how my mail is delivered and my delivery person, as well as her predecessor, have always done a wonderful job.


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Posts: 5785 | Location: Pegram, TN | Registered: March 17, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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It'll be the unregulated Uber of the delivery business. What could go wrong?


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Posts: 13532 | Location: Bottom of Lake Washington | Registered: March 06, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I Am The Walrus
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quote:
Originally posted by Ryanp225:
I think it's good.
UPS and Fed Ex aren't keeping up and service it terrible so taking the Amazon volume off of them and letting UPS and F.E. stick with the business to business routes that they actually do well will be best for the end user.


I'm not sure if it's good or not since Amazon is growing so big and will inevitably control too much.

But for now it appears that they're doing enough volume to keep all the delivery services very busy. I would throw in USPS in there as well. Sunday deliveries were Amazon only and during the Christmas season we had 15-18 carriers delivering about 120-150 packages each. This was in addition to us already delivering Monday-Saturday, USP, FedEx and the Amazon drivers.

quote:
Originally posted by HRK:
Amazon is using locals to drive packages around here, my daughter received a package from them and the drivers were not UPS/Fedex/USPS but independents in their personal cars.

While the guy brought the package to the door his wife/gf/partner stood in the yard smoking a cigarette, not the professional image one would like.

It appears at least here and I"m sure elsewhere it's an Uber type service, getting people to make deliveries in their POV.


We seem to have both here. There are those who use their personal vehicles for deliveries with USPS and UPS doing the majority of the deliveries. I read a short article on the Amazon delivery people, they can make $15-20/hour as Amazon stages the items where your deliveries are in the same general area. Some areas don't offer the service yet, though.


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Posts: 13379 | Registered: March 12, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I’ll probably apply for a position whenever they make their way to NoCal.



"I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet raised to an alarming extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!" - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes"
 
Posts: 18132 | Location: Sonoma County, CA | Registered: April 09, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Chip away the stone
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For my own purposes, I don't see any advantage to it other than possible lower cost, as I get all my stuff at work anyhow, and UPS, FedEx and USPS deliver stuff to us every weekday.

If they do allow customers to set delivery-time windows, and give them the option to demand a signature upon delivery, that might appeal to a lot of customers, since package theft now seems to be a really big problem.
 
Posts: 11597 | Registered: August 22, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Big Stack
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This is not new. They've been setting this up for a while (a few years), to the point of ordering planes for Boeing.

What I read a while back was that this was not so much to replace UPS/Fedex, it was that the latter couldn't keep up with Amazon's growth, and Amazon had to insure they'd have enough capacity.
 
Posts: 21240 | Registered: November 05, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Almost as Fast as a Speeding Bullet
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As a small part of the Amazon empire, I can offer a small bit of insight into at least the air arm of the operation.

Right now, Amazon has contracted for 60 767 aircraft to be flown by three different companies. Amazon does not actually have a flight program, they are just customers for the three airlines. What the long term plan is is anybodies guess, and there are constant rumors circulating about their long term goals with regard to purchasing an airline or growing one.

They currently are sharing ramp space in Cincinnati with DHL and operating at times that don't conflict with DHLs needs of airport capacity. DHL feeds Amazon from foreign suppliers and Amazon's operation is strictly domestic at this time. However, Amazon has announced plans for a massive facility to be built at Cincinnati that will rival Memphis and Louisville in sheer scope of operation. 100+ airplanes a night from what I have seen.

As far as getting new airplanes, that's going to be interesting. FedEx and UPS have dominated the market for purchasing new aircraft from Boeing, and the used market is a tiger pit of competition as everyone looks for reasonably healthy airframes to convert.


______________________________________________
Aeronautics confers beauty and grandeur, combining art and science for those who devote themselves to it. . . . The aeronaut, free in space, sailing in the infinite, loses himself in the immense undulations of nature. He climbs, he rises, he soars, he reigns, he hurtles the proud vault of the azure sky. — Georges Besançon
 
Posts: 11502 | Location: Denver and/or The World | Registered: August 30, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Your advice to your son, should include a resume and cover letter to "Amazon Parcel Service", and ready to mail in an instant...


He should probably UPS letter it over to them and take advantage of his corporate discount while he can.
 
Posts: 2124 | Location: Just outside of Zion and Bryce Canyon NP's | Registered: March 18, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Otto...just flew with an F/O on his last flight with the airline where I fly to go fly for ATI. A lot of the talk about his new gig centered around Amazon. He's young enough to take that venture risk...I applaud him!!



"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24
 
Posts: 11066 | Location: NW Houston | Registered: April 04, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by bigdeal:
I like Amazon and am a Prime member. However, at what point do we begin to become concerned that the company is simply too big? I've begun wondering the same thing about Google.


I wish I had a linkable source for this but not too long ago when they announced that they acquired Whole Food an “Amazon insider” was on the local talk radio show stating if Amazon continues to grow, acquire brands, and implement their new purchasing ideas at their current rate 50% of ALL consumer purchases will he somehow Amazon associated. This will include vehicle sales and home sales. Yes, home sales as in real estate!!


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You should know I'll be there for you!
 
Posts: 25903 | Registered: September 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Having worked at UPS as a box thrower here in Louisville, 30-40% of the volume is Amazon. More during Christmas.

I worked for Airborne Maintenance & Engineering Services as an aircraft mechanic when Amazon tried to buy them, but they only allowed a 20% stake in the company after they leased aircraft.


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Posts: 244 | Location: SDF | Registered: January 13, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Back in '96 both Fedex and UPS peed on everyone's cornflakes badly enough that I thought they might both go belly up then. The joke going around was that they were going to merge and form a company called "Fed-Up".

If Amazon does its own shipping, I'm not sure the volume of business left would support both Fedex and UPS. I'd expect one or another to fold.

Another issue would be if the feds decide it would be too much like a monopoly to have such a large company do its own delivery.


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Posts: 2159 | Location: The Sticks in Wisconsin. | Registered: September 30, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Green grass and
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I am all for it. The usps is outa control with their monopoly.



"Practice like you want to play in the game"
 
Posts: 20015 | Registered: September 21, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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